On April 5, 1815, after several sleepless centuries, Mount Tanbora erupted from the island of Sumbawa (present-day Indonesia). It was a median rash. Noises like thunder were heard about 400 kilometers away, and the next day the ash began to fall into East Java. A few days later, at 7 p.m. on 10 April, in Sumatra, 2,600 kilometres from Tanburg, they began to hear the guns. Or that's what they believed. The protesters mobilized several dozen people to deal with the alleged sexual assault. And by the way, they boarded several boats, believing that the boat had been shot down by a boat that was in difficulty. But these noises came from the Tanbo. The eruption intensified on 10 and 11 to 800 Mt. Man's strongest nuclear weapon, the largest artificial explosion in history, released a 57 Mt force at the time of the explosion. Later, British colonial governor Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles in 1830 and Swiss botanist Heinrich Zollinger in 1847 collected testimonies from those who saw the eruption live. According to them, “three columns of fire came out of the earth and came to heaven” and “the mountain became a mass of liquid fire.” The collection of these testimonies would not be easy, as only 40 of the 12,000 inhabitants living on the Tamboa Peninsula survived the tragedy.

The eruption therefore had immediate and terrible effects on the islands of South-East Asia. But this explosion was going to shake every part of the world for the months and years that followed.

Year without summer

From 1816 on, it would be known as “Year without summer”. The enormous amount of volcanic ashes thrown into the atmosphere by the Volcano in 1815 spread throughout the world and, especially, through the Northern Hemisphere in the coming months. It should be borne in mind that ash emissions were not immediately interrupted. The explosions did not freeze until 15 July, and on 23 August the crater was still moistened in the earthquake area. The ash did not allow the sun to reach the earth and the temperatures had collapsed: In the summer of 1816, a year after the eruption, it snowed in almost the entire hemisphere, in August each morning frost, storms and torrential rains were recorded everywhere. The rivers froze and, when the ice melted, there were floods, until the Rhin itself overflowed. In Hungary it snowed brown because of the ash, while in Italy red snow was observed. India's monsoon, the world's most important climate system, was delayed in two years by the gases emitted by the volcano.

Cold, hunger and epidemics

Strong climate change caused a disaster in agriculture. The crops were completely destroyed. John D. For the historian Post, what happened by Tanbora was “the last great survival crisis in the West.” It was precisely this title that put the work on the subject that was published in 1977.

As has been said, the monsoon of India slowed down, torrential rains came later than usual and became uncontrollable for the population adapted to the specific climate calendar. Health and hygiene conditions worsened significantly and cholera, which until then was limited to certain areas of the Gulf of Bengal, extended to Moscow. Typhus also spread rapidly, as the humid and cold environments are suitable for this. In 1816 alone, 800,000 people were infected in Europe.

In those years, Europe suffered the greatest famine of the 19th century. Prices for basic necessities increased by 250% in England and by 350% in France. In addition, the continent was weakened by the Napoleonic wars. It is difficult to calculate the death toll from the eruption. According to some, more than 200,000 people lost their lives because of climate change that occurred suddenly. But there are sources indicating that 100,000 deaths were recorded in Ireland alone and that in the three years following the explosion in Tanborá the mortality rate in Europe doubled.

Design EE.UU

In addition to the old continent, the ashes of the volcano also influenced the more modern countries. In 1815, in newborns in the United States, the population was concentrated mainly in New England, that is, in six states on the northeast coast. On June 6, 1815 it snowed in New York and two days later it marked in Boston. In Pennsylvania, there were still some icy rivers and lakes in August.

Its inhabitants were accustomed to cold winters, but cultivation was too much for land. Food shortages brought with it an increase in prices; the oatmeal barrel currently cost $1.5 in 1815 and the price reached $12.78 the following year. There was still no proper transport network and it was too expensive to import food. The situation became unsustainable for thousands of families and many of them headed inland and south in search of a more friendly climate and more prosperous land. During these years, the so-called “American Heartland”, the area of the EE.UU. It's not impregnated by the sea, it's been configured. At present, the difference between the coasts and the interior of the United States remains significant.

Bicycles and mineral fertilizers

They say hunger sharpens ingenuity. German chemist Justus Von Liebig (1803-1873) suffered in his childhood a famine caused by Tanborá in his hometown, Darmstadt. Since then, he became obsessed with the performance of agriculture and conducted numerous studies on plant nutrition. He discovered that nitrogen was fundamental to crop growth and, based on the discovery, he developed mineral fertilizers and introduced them into the production process. It was the forerunner of the fertilizer industry.

Another German, inventor Karl Drais, invented the Laufmaschine or Belozipedo in 1817. H. R. According to historian Lessing, the ancestor of bicycles and motorcycles is also linked to the Tanbora crisis. There was not enough food for men and less for horses. But horseback transportation was fundamental at that time, and Drais wanted to invent an alternative means of transportation.

Waterloo and the Restoration

At a conference on geosciences in Warwick (England) in 1996, geologist Kenneth Spink stated that Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo was the result of the eruption. The battle took place on June 18, 1815, and by then the influence of the volcano was evident in the climate. According to those who were on the battlefield of Belgium, the sky was covered in black clouds, the basques were continuous and the seized terrain prevented artillery from flourishing. Historian Jacques Logie does not share Spink's theory. He does not deny that the storm of Waterloo was provoked by Tanborá, but states that the weather worsened to the detriment of the two sides and that, although it influenced more on Napoleon's fingers, many other factors were more decisive. But it must be borne in mind that in the strategy that gave so many victories to Napoleon, the rapid movement of troops was fundamental and under those conditions he was unable to carry out the usual tactics.

After Napoleon’s defeat came the Restoration, the Old Regime was restored in Europe. But not for a long time, because in 1820 the flooding of the liberal revolutions flooded Europe. The intellectual leaders of the revolutions were driven by the doctrines of liberalism and nationalism, but at the base of the revolutions, as happened in Paris in 1789, were the citizens of hunger and rising prices.

All the calamities and changes mentioned cannot be attributed solely to Tanborá. Other factors need to be taken into account when it comes to understanding what has happened in these years as a whole. But the effect of the eruption is undeniable, and the 200th anniversary of the catastrophe can be an excuse to better analyze the issue from different quarters, 200 years later, as it can serve to predict what can lead to deeper and more sustainable climate change.